A letter from the long-silent Leikin, whom Chekhov had quite forgotten in his excitement over The Steppe, informed him of a projected visit to Moscow. When he arrived early in March, the visit became a welcome excuse for festive gatherings of old friends, Gilyarov- sky and Palmin, along with Lazarev-Gruzinsky, the young and hopeful aspirant to Chekhov's forfeited place in the pages of Fragments. Chekhov accompanied Leikin back to Petersburg. He had some business there, but also he could not resist the temptation, as on the occasion of previous successes, to sample the climate of opinion about The Steppe in this discriminating literary center. If he had expected any discriminating criticism from Leikin, he was disappointed. For this "discoverer" of Chekhov, now very much on the defensive with him, made the long train trip miserable by shamelessly boasting about his own literary prowess and by pestering him for critical judgments on his- writings.
Chekhov spent most of his week's stay at Petersburg as a house guest- of the Suvorins. And this wealthy son of a former serf, who had long since squeezed the slave out of himself, handsomely entertained another former serf's son who was still struggling with the slave in him. Dazzled, Chekhov wrote Lazarev-Gruzinsky that his cup ran over and that Suvorin was one of "the remarkable men of our time." (March 22, 1888.) His separate suite of two rooms, tastefully furnished with a grand piano, harmonium, a bed, fireplace, and an elegant desk, had its own entrance and a special toilet which seemed a miraculous luxury to Chekhov. The valet assigned to him had a well-bred physiognomy and Chekhov thought him better dressed than himself.. Nor could he get used to this servant walking reverentially around him on tiptoe, trying to anticipate his every wish. In addition a carriage was placed at his disposal. "In general," he wrote Mariya Kiselcva, "I felt like a scoundrel." (March 25, 1888.)
Staying with the Suvorins, however, had its drawbacks, not the least of which was the impropriety of coming home half-drunk or accompanied by a lady friend. And whenever he was at home they monopolized him. Before dinner Madame Suvorina would regale him with her detestation of the human race or with how she had just bought herself a jacket for 120 roubles. And after dinner the conversation would switch to migraine headaches, while the youngsters of the family would stare at him goggle-eyed waiting for him to say something clever; for after all, was he not the famous author of Kashtanka? From dinner to teatime there were philosophical monologues by Suvorin in his study, with the hostess occasionally entering into the conversation, "but inappropriately," Chekhov wrote to Misha, "speaking in a bass voice, or imitating a yapping dog." (March 15, 1888.)
Was it Suvorin's good business sense, or a conviction that Chekhov had a great literary future ahead of him, or just the expansiveness of friendship, that prompted him, in a most serious manner, to propose that Anton marry his little daughter, who at that moment — Chekhov later wrote to Alexander — was crawling under the table at his feet? "Wait five or six years, my friend, and get married," Chekhov quoted him. "What the devil more do you need? I would not wish for anything better." (March 24, 1888.) Chekhov jokingly asked him, as a dowry, for the Historical Herald, a well-known periodical which Suvorin controlled, and suggested that he might throw in the editor for good measure. But Suvorin solemnly replied that he could have half the total income of New Times for a dowry.
At the moment, however, Chekhov wanted nothing more intimate with Suvorin than a book contract. He had no difficulty in corning to an agreement with him for the publishing of another volume of his tales, as well as a second edition of In the Twilight, although there were still a number of unsold copies on hand. And a further project was talked about —a volume of his tales especially designed for children. Alexander, whose sobriety at this point Chekhov marveled at, was commissioned to take care of the details of these projects.
Business, however, was not the only interest of Chekhov during this stay in Petersburg. There were gay parties with Pleshcheev and Leontiev- Shcheglov. He was introduced to the owner and editor of Northern Herald, Anna Yevreinova, "a very sweet and clever old maid," whose face reminded him of a roasted starling, and he spent an evening with the poet Polonsky who had dedicated verses to him; in return, Chekhov graciously requested that he be allowed to dedicate to Polonsky one of his best stories, Happiness, in his proposed new collection. Wherever he went, he wrote Misha, they talked about The Steppe. In the editorial office of New Times, according to Alexander, the famous Leskov had told him that his brother was a genius, and Chekhov heard that the great Saltykov-Shchedrin was in raptures over the story. Everywhere in Petersburg, he informed Mariya Kiseleva, he bathed in glory and sniffed incense. They nicknamed him "Potemkin," he said, although he had no Catherine, but they regarded him as a favorite of the Muse. Perhaps he also heard at that time how Garshin had read The Steppe aloud to a distinguished gathering, including the eminent painter Repin. Several present, still devoted to Turgenev's literary manner, criticized what they thought was a lack of purpose and ideas in the story. But Garshin, with tears in his voice, defended the "pearls of language," the poetry, and the inimitable technique of Chekhov, whom he regarded as a bright new sun in Russian literature. Chekhov made a point of calling on this sympathetic admirer, one of the most popular writers of the day, but he was not at home. To his horror he learned a couple of weeks later that the emotionally unstable Garshin had committed suicide by throwing himself down his stairway. Chekhov willingly agreed to contribute a story to a memorial volume in his honor. And to Suvorin he wrote: "An unendurable life! But a stairway, that is terrible. I saw it: dark, dirty." (April 3, 1888.)
Less than a month after Chekhov's departure, two young Petersburg literary rivals, V. A. Tikhonov and Leontiev-Shcheglov, were discussing him. That night Tikhonov entered in his diary: "I won't say anything here about Chekhov's talent, which in any case is the freshest, most brilliant, and finest among all our contemporary writers. But Leontiev- Shcheglov characterized him for me as a human being, and without knowing him personally, I fell in love with Chekhov. In him there is every tiling (according to Leontiev-Shcheglov) that I most admire in a man."
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Though it was still March and the weather foul when Chekhov returned to Moscow, he smelled spring in the air. For he had already begun to think of a spring trip and to conjure with the family's summer vacation plans. Such impatient anticipation sometimes had its source in the turbulent and often oppressive existence in the family home on Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya. In April Alexander, whose wife was dying, asked him to take in his two children for a time. Chekhov felt compelled to counter that it would be better for Alexander to pay Auntie Fedosiya and her son enough to hire a small apartment and take care of the children. His house was crowded, Chekhov explained. There were eight people, including Nikolai, who had turned up again and went around drunk and half-dressed. Then their brother Ivan usually "visited" from three in the afternoon until late at night, and on all holidays, and his father every evening. "They are all nice people," Chekhov wrote, "jolly —but egotistic, pretentious, excessively talkative, accus- tomcd to stamping their feet, and impecunious." (April 26, 1888.) He was more forthright to Leontiev-Shcheglov. His family bound him hand and foot, he said. "You have a wife who forgives you if you have no money, but I have a household that comes crashing down on me if I don't earn a certain number of roubles every month, crashes and weighs on me like a millstone about my neck." (April 18, 1888.)